A Logical Man
by Lazy-ass-Ninja
Summary: Stoick is a man ruled by reason but it's tradition on the eve of your wedding to get your fortune told by Gothi. WARNING HTTYD2 SPOILERS


He's a man of logic.

Really, he is.

Except Valka accepts his badly sung proposal. Furthurmore it's traditional on Berk to go to Gothi and have her see your future after the wedding. So after his father pronounces them husband and wife they make their way up to Gothi's home on the highest part of the village. So Gothi looks at their tongues, eyes, the bottoms of their feet, and has them each select a bone to put on the fire for their futures.

As is traditional she starts with Valka.

Looking at his brand new wife the ancient woman starts to draw, "I'll lead a long adventurous life. My fate is tied to…" she pauses a little confused, "…dragons?" she looks at Stoick a bit confused but shrugs, "I always loved learning about them." she smiles and Stoick smiles back remembering how his wife had been far more interested in studying dragons than slaying them back in their academy days.

"She's still telling your story." he urges, having never been able to make heads or tails of the doodles that told almost everyone else some great wisdom.

"Oh right! Let's see," she looks upon the new doodles, "I'll only be married once," she smiles at Stoick who smiles back at her hoping for the same fortune on that front, "and then I'll die in my sleep." she smiles at him excited by the prospects of her long life and an adventurous one at that.

Then Gothi's ancient eyes turned to Stoick.

She erased Valka's story and started on Stoick's "You'll be a great chief, your people will love and admire you, you will face many battles and see many victories." she smiles at the next part, "Your current troubles with Alvin will be solved in due time." and Stoick breathes a sigh of relief at that, "You'll be married once." they smile again at one another, "You will die by a dragon." she looked at Stoick nervously but he smiles at her reassuringly.

"Don't worry, if I died early surely you would be married at least twice. The men of Berk are all already plotting my death for taking the most beautiful bride." he smiles at her and the lines in Valka's face ease.

"Yes, maybe a terrible terror will sneak up on you in your rocking chair and give you a heart attack." she teases and Stoick smiles at his wife glad to see her face free of the worry. She turns her eyes back to Gothi who looks at the two of them with pleased eyes, "Now's the most important part. Tell us about our children Gothi." Valka implores and Gothi just nods once before erasing Stoick's tale.

She starts and Valka's eyes burn with excitement, "We'll have a son, he'll be smart, brave, and loyal. His fate will be tied to dragons and he will bring a peace to Berk the likes of which we never thought. He'll make us both prouder than anyone could believe." she clapped her hands together and Stoick couldn't keep his own excitement off his face.

They left Gothi's hut in high spirits and even though Stoick was a man of logic he couldn't hope but wish for Gothi's predictions to be true.

His father steps down and appoints him as the new chief of Berk and with that happy announcement one of his dearest friends tried to kill him. Alvin's attempted uprising is quelled but Stoick doesn't have the heart to kill his long time friend so they keep him locked up and sail him to the island filled with Loki trees where Berk has long put traitors and tricksters.

He sails back with a heavy heart and it feels like confirmation that Gothi can't see the future as she claims.

His wife becomes pregnant a year after their marriage and Gothi predicts it's a boy and she's right. However Gothi didn't tell them that their little boy was going to come out so early and so tiny. The runt of the litter tradition dictates his name to be Hiccup, the name of the children who never make it but Berk runs on tradition. Valka spends every waking minute by Hiccup's crib and Stoick forces himself to believe Gothi's predictions.

"Just you wait Valka." he says as strokes his son's tiny hand with a single finger, "He'll be the strongest of us all in time." he says and the words seem to give Hiccup strength as he grasps Stoick's forefinger tight. It gives Stoick the strength to tell Gobber he doesn't need his one legged friend to hobble around doing his chiefly duties.

Within a month Hiccup giggles and cries just as passionately as any viking baby. Valka is so relieved that she doesn't mind waking up at all hours to take care of him and Stoick is glad that his wife takes so much joy in taking care of their son, but he's even gladder that his son is going to live.

When Hiccup is two months old they take him on a fishing trip because Valka hasn't been on one in so long but she can't leave him. They keep him in the shade wary that freya will burn his new tender skin and they start to fish, catching up on all the things that they've missed in their hectic lives.

Then a Scauldron appears and is looking at Hiccup with a fascination that Stoick thinks is hunger and Valka sees as something else entirely. He punches the creature away from his little boy and the Scauldron leaves without further prompting.

"Monsters the lot of them!" he huffs cradling a crying hiccup in his arm, "Trying to eat my son." he continues to rock his son before turning on Valka, "The nerve of those beasts!" he exclaimed but then quieted because Hiccup was just on the verge of going to sleep.

"I don't think it was trying to eat him Stoick. That Scauldron was there for a bit, he was just looking at Hiccup and Hiccup was playing with the Scauldron." Valka argued reaching for Hiccup but Stoick pulled him away, not willing to give up his son just yet and not liking what his wife was saying.

"Valka he wasn't laughing! He was sobbing!" he argued quietly shooting a nervous glance down at Hiccup's sleeping face.

"He only started crying when you punched his dragon friend right in the face!" Valka argued back just as heatedly.

The argument continued the whole trip back and the only thing that kept them from throwing furniture was Hiccup's sleeping face.

Valka makes Hiccup a little dragon toy but Hiccup won't stop crying whenever he sees it and Stoick takes that as sign enough that he was right about his son being scared of the dragon. He doesn't say anything about it to Valka who just looks put out by her son's tears over her toy for him.

However he doesn't stop Hiccup from pitching the dragon into the ocean on their next fishing trip.

He's almost forgotten Gothi's prediction for him when the dragons attack Berk again. Valka's taken up a stance that they should stop fighting dragons and see if there was a way to live peacefully. It's not popular but he doesn't say anything about it to her, Valka is a smart woman who will come to understand the simple truth about vikings and dragons soon enough.

Except she doesn't have enough time.

Hiccup is six months old when the largest swarm of dragons Stoick has ever seen attack Berk.

He's focused on minimizing damage and stopping as many dragons as he can when Gobber lets out a shout. "Stoick your house!" he cries and he catches the tail of a dragon entering into his hut and feels his heart fly into his throat.

"Hiccup!" he cries rushing and leaving Gobber to continue to look after the town. His feet feel like they aren't moving fast enough even though the huts and trees are blurs in his vision.

His door is ajar and he doesn't even think before he throws the axe between Valka and the strange dragon that had entered his home.

"Valka run!" he cries and heads for Hiccup because he has to protect his little boy. Has to protect the child who's crying and scared and besides that he knows his wife can help herself by running.

Except Valka doesn't run, she's crying for him as the dragon carries her off.

He doesn't have a body to send to Valhalla so that he could see her there.

Him and Alvin will never work things out. Hiccup is a tiny child who had to fight to cling to life and will never grow up to have a body like Stoick's. Valka didn't die in her sleep.

Gothi can't see the future.

So he just has a tiny baby that has Valka's eyes and when he gets older he shares more and more qualities with his mother. It's when he realizes that Hiccup has his mother's laugh and wry humor that he stops his son from being on fire patrol and has him be Gobber's apprentice. Hiccup seems put out by it and he knows that the other children his age all look down on him but he can't bare to lose Hiccup too, especially not to a dragon.

So he kills dragons instead of capturing them for the academy like he had done when Valka was alive. He gains a reputation throughout Berk, even more of one than he had before, and Hiccup takes to blacksmithing almost as easily as Gobber did.

The only problem being that once Hiccup mastered all the basics and can make weapons up to Gobber's standards his best friend lets his son go wild and make his own weapons. Hiccup shows him the designs he's drawn for some sort of spring loaded net and he can only barely sit through it remembering Valka's love of designing ridiculous weapons.

It's fine and he's keeping Hiccup as far away from dragons as he can but the boy seems as drawn to them as his mother. It's only after Gobber's council that he agrees to let Hiccup into the academy and when Hiccup seems hesitant to kill them he remembers how Valka hadn't been able to kill the dragon that killed her. His eyes focused on the scar that dragon left on Hiccups chin that night he tells his son that he is going to learn to kill dragons.

Because Stoick can't bare to lose him to one and he can't keep him away from them like he had originally hoped.

Over the next month Stoick goes through a roller coaster ride of emotions. First he's elated at his son's apparent prodigiousness with dragon handling.

Then he's terrified because Hiccup has always been too much like his mother but watching him reach for the Monstrous Nightmare as though it were a pet is more nightmare fuel than he ever needed.

Next he's furious as a Night Fury comes to save his son and he realizes his boy's been learning how to train dragons instead of killing them.

Fury becomes sorrow because this is Valka's son, this is his son even if he's just told Hiccup otherwise. He swears he's going to apologize when he gets back because Hiccup had always been like his mother and it's his fault for not realizing just how much.

Sorrow morphs into pride as he watches his son ride the beast and he realizes that his son is going to save them all from the dragon queen. Watching his son and that dragon evade and attack keeps his heart in his throat but in the last seconds of the battle he sees the beast and Hiccup get hit by the tail.

It turns to dread when he sees them falling into the inferno.

He can't say what he felt when he finds the dragon alone in the aftermath. He just feels numb in a way he hadn't been when Valka was carried off. He falls to his knees and apologizes to the creature that took better care of his son than he had.

Then black wings unfurl and his son is alive he's missing a foot but he's alive and that's all that Stoick needs.

Hiccup takes to his new leg pretty well though he's rarely not on Toothless's back and Stoick watches as his son continues to grow more and more into the role that Gothi had spoken of. Creating peace between vikings and dragons, fostering friendships between the two worlds that had been killing one another for longer than Stoick'd been alive.

His son faces problems that Stoick had long decided were unsolvable. He mends the broken friendship between Stoick and Alvin, fights and wins against the Beserker Armada, and helps Stoick find a piece of Valka that he'd foolishly let Hiccup throw into the sea.

He smiles at his son as Astrid takes the initiative and asks him out on a moonlight flight because his son's head is in the clouds watching dragons but he's not dumb. He accepts and the two take off on their dragons and Stoick isn't even mad when Hiccup shows up at home hours after curfew with the same face Stoick had after his first date with Valka.

So he watches the two and doesn't let himself be bitter about his own too short love because Hiccup will have all the time in the world with Astrid if Stoick has anything to say about it. So he cheers them on in all the ways he can and when the two start traveling far and wide together on adventures he's just glad that they're doing something productive with it as they draw a map.

So when his son turns twenty he waits a few months before catching him at breakfast. "Son, we need to talk." and Hiccup looks at him a little unsure before sitting down at the table cautiously.

"Okay?" he looks puzzled, "I've got everything set up for the dragon race today if that's what you're wondering." he offers and Stoick can see the way his son is itching to get outside and onto Toothless for their morning flight.

He shakes his head, "No, I know the race is all ready, that's not what I want to talk about." He stands up and walks away from the table, "You're the pride of Berk son and I couldn't be prouder." he pauses looking at his father's axe.

"Uh, thanks dad?" Hiccup tries and Stoick smiles at the old weapon.

"That's why I think there's no better candidate for the next chief." he states and is met by silence. "So, what do y-" he stops as he looks at the empty table and a huff of annoyance as he hears the heavy beating of Toothless' wings.

He doesn't let it get him down, Valka was a free spirit too and he knows it'll be daunting for his son to give up so much freedom. Except he's seen Hiccup leading the Dragon riders and during times when Stoick couldn't lead the village it's always Hiccup who steps into those shoes and despite only being able to wear one of them he always does Stoick proud. His son is a born leader and it's one of the few traits that his boy got from him and he won't see it vanish beneath Hiccups love of goofing off on his dragon.

So he pushes forward with optimism when Hiccup shows back up a half day later after Astrid has gone and retrieved him from whatever new land he's given a ridiculous name to.

Then Hiccup tells him about a Dragon army and Drago Bludvist.

He tries to lock down Berk but his son is already racing off trying to find a peaceful solution when there is none. He finds Hiccup and Astrid fast enough with Skullcrusher tracking them but Hiccup flies off again without so much as a thought about what would happen to Berk without him. He sends the other riders back home and follows after his son with Gobber.

Finding his son's helmet in the ice cold water was only tolerable when Skullcrusher didn't circle the break in the ice. His dragon flies straight and when he sees where his son is being held he remembers Astrid's words about one of Drago's bases being blown to smithereens by ice.

He finds Hiccup easily enough, he just has to follow familiar sounds of dragons at play and he knows his son will be where the dragons are. He's too mad to listen to Hiccup right then because he's too much like his mother when he's like this and it hurts.

Then Gobber points him to a cavern with wide eyes and he's staring at his wife again after 20 years.

He knows that Valka is saying something but he can't seem to hear her until he's right in front of her, "Oh! Stop being so stoic, Stoick! Say something! Yell! Scream!" she demands but Stoick couldn't yell at her if his life depended on it.

"You're as beautiful as the day I lost you." he manages and it's his first kiss in twenty years that wasn't to Hiccup's forehead while his son was sleeping off an injury or sickness.

It feels like a dream he hadn't let himself have. Dancing with his wife, singing their song while their son watches and Gobber sings along.

It's over faster than he'd like as Bludvist attacks and he can't take his eyes off of his wife. Protecting her from Bludvist and then the Alpha's icy breath.

Then the Alpha turns away and Stoick's eyes focus on the distant figure of a night fury and his son. "Hiccup." he breathes and suddenly Valka isn't in his arms anymore as he's running as fast as his legs can carry him and he's picking Hiccup again and he's realizing that in a million situations he'll always pick Hiccup because Hiccup is his and Valka's son and he loves Hiccup more than he loves anything.

So it's without a thought that he shoves his son out of the way of his stolen dragon's shot.

His mind seems to be working faster as everything else rapidly shuts down. He thinks of Gothi's predictions a lifetime ago. Thinks about Alvin and their tentative but friendly alliance with the outcasts. Thinks of Valka's twenty years learning about dragons and adventuring throughout the world to save them. Thinks of his own achievements in Berk. His mind spends a long moment thinking of his son and the man he's raised from infancy. Finally he remembers his own death predicted to be by a dragon.

His only regret is the look of agony on Hiccups face as he jumped to protect his son is the last thing he sees.

He enters Valhalla to the cries of Valkyries and he hopes Hiccup can hear them and that face is gone. He watches his son fight and beat Drago Bludvist and his Alpha. It's with even more pride that he watches Hiccup accept the position of chief.

He's a man of logic but he's thankful Gothi was right all along.


End file.
